PLAYING golf with a new partner can be a nerve-wracking experience, especially if, like me, you are generally a poorer player than the person you are teeing it up with.

I'm not really sure why this is. Of course nobody wants to make themselves look stupid, but most people who play the great game are likely to do just that at least once per round, no matter who they are out with.

For the most part, golfers playing for pleasure tend to remain united. Rather than competing against each other, we work together to take on the course, which is the real enemy (if you ignore our own terrible swing faults) as we try to enjoy our leisure time.

Still, it was with a slight sense of trepidation that I took to the course at Weybrook Park with Ken Gaunt, who is the father of the former chief photographer here at the Gazette (it's amazing who you end up playing with).

My sense of foreboding increased slightly when Ken informed me that, as a junior, he had competed in the Scottish Boys' Championship and had played off a pretty good handicap in his youth.

Fortunately for me, he is very much out of practice, so we should have been able to have a decent game.

Well, we would have been able to, had I not enjoyed the best round of my life.

Hitting the green in regulation at the uphill 487-yard par-five opening hole set the tone and while I proceeded to three-putt, my ball striking was outstanding throughout.

After bogeys at the first seven holes, I finally holed a putt to secure a par at the eighth and reached the turn in just 44.

In general, I was amazingly consistent, making 14 bogeys over the course of the round. Add in a birdie and two pars and for a guy playing off 24, you have an excellent round of 87.

My one double-bogey came at the par-five 15th. I hit the perfect tee-shot, splitting the fairway to leave me with less than 200yards to the green.

I decided to go for it and while the resulting duff wasn't too costly, leaving me with a wedge into the green, the shank that followed was and I did well to get down in four from a tricky position.

Ken gradually got into the swing of things. He's a straight hitter, but he was having trouble on and around the greens.

However, that was nothing compared to the trouble he was having believing that I really played off a handicap above 20. He'll soon learn.